Ref Review 2012/13: Any good refs out there for Swansea ?

By Walter Broeckx

This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article.

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After having dealt with the different teams and after having examined all the Premier League refs (leading to the best ref of the season according to the views of our referee reviewers) we now will bring you something that will be an easy manual to see who is good or bad for each individual team.

We will of course bring you this in order so that from now on if you see that your team is playing and there is a certain ref assigned you can see in a blink of an eye if this ref has a bad or a good history with your team. At least in the season 2012/2013. And if all goes well we will even try to add the bias from the season before in to each article. And that way you can see if there are any possible situations that return from one year to the next.

And we do this because it might well be that some referee performances are a one off. But if a ref has the same bias against a team it might show something more. For if a ref has a big bias in favour of a team it also is saying something about that ref.

A little word of explanation about the graphics below. The ultimate referee performance would be that the bias score (which is based on the wrong decisions) of around zero. Alas you will find very few of those scores in the total series. So the zero line will be the middle line of each graphic.

If a ref has positive bias score for the team involved you will see a name (of the ref) and a green line and a number. That is the bias number for that ref.

On the other hand if the ref had a negative bias you will once again see a name but then with a red line and a number. The negative bias score for that ref.

The longer the lines, the higher the number and the higher the bias that ref produces. Short lines are better and would be nicer for us all, if only the world worked that way. I also included a little table in the graphic just with the names and with a red or green label. This is for any readers who want to have a quick look at the names as sometimes the numbers can get in the way.

Next in our series is Swansea

Unlike the table we have seen in our previous article from Tottenham this is a complete opposite image: too much red.

One could say only one ref really liked them and that was Clattenburg. Roger East also seemed to like them a bit. And the third ref with small positive bias was Dean.

And then it all turns negative for Swansea. Moss and Oliver with a small negative bias so not that bad. But Mason, Atkinson, Probert and Dowd with too high numbers. And top of the negative list is ref Taylor.

Can we see a pattern if we compare these numbers with the one from the season 2011/12?

Last season we only had one really negative ref for Swansea and that was Foy. Mason and Dean had a small negative bias against them. For Mason this is the second year running with a negative bias.

Last season Marinner had a zero bias. Webb and Atwell didn’t have a game of Swansea to compare with over the last season. And ref Oliver had a big positive bias in that season but a small negative one in the last season.

So the only ref that has kept his position is Lee Mason with a negative bias all round.